The invention relates to a handrail for escalators, moving walkways and the like, comprising an endless, flexible strip with a gripping region and a guiding region which, in operation, slide on a fixed guideway, and one or more tensile supports embedded in the strip and consisting of high-strength materials with limited extensibility and to a process for its production.
Known handrails of the said type consist of continuous endless strips of natural or synthetic rubber with incorporated reinforcing layers. Although these known handrails have given excellent results in operation, their production is extremely complicated. The known handrails are produced in the form of full-length handrails or in long lengths and must then be vulcanized length by length, for which purpose they must each be processed in a vulcanization press. After vulcanizing, the handrail is joined together to form an endless loop in a relatively complicated and not always satisfactory manner.
Furthermore, so-called link-type handrail strips are known, which are made up of individual elements of the same cross-section. In this arrangement, the elements are either connected to one another directly (German Patent Specification 1,811,982) or are mounted on a common, continuous drag chain (U.S. Pat. No. 2,766,886). The disadvantage of the known link-type handrail strips consists in the fact that they exhibit excessively high elongation in the direction of running since the play between each pair of elements due to the production and assembly methods adds up cumulatively over the whole length to an impermissibly large play. This is particularly the case with wear after prolonged running and is noticeable by a sharp rise in the running noise. A further disadvantage is the wear which arises due to the friction between the individual elements and the guide rails.
From U.S. Pat. No. 2,778,882 a handrail is known which is made up of plastic bodies and an endless covering of elastic plastics material or rubber. The basic bodies which are made of solid plastics material are individually or in groups, formed in distance around tensile ropes. To get a continuous condition for the covering, the mutually facing sides of the basic bodies are supplied with projected, on space arranged spouts.